Our Sawmills Range

All the Mahoe Sawmills are a twinsaw with a horizontal and vertical blade. You pull the lever and the powerhead travels down the log, cutting a board, push the lever and the board is returned. The Minimax is easy to operate as a one or two man operation.

• History — Mahoe Sawmills is one of New Zealand's leading portable sawmill producers owned and operated by the Bergman brothers, John and Ben. They started milling the high value salvage Kauri in the 1980s in the remote hills of the Bay of Islands, sometimes travelling 1-2 hours on the rough forestry tracks or heli logging to recover inaccessable logs. Also milling eucaliptus and pine, they gained experience operating a timber yard and manufacturing high quality hand crafted furniture.
  When a delegation of Russians came to Mahoe Farm's dairy unit looking at the cheese factory and other small business's, they ordered two sawmills.
  John and Ben Bergman had the background and knowledge to build the best. When you are milling Kauri in remote areas, your machine must reliable and accurate, easy to use and safe. These were all very necessary attrributes in supplying sawmills to Siberia in the early 1980s.
• Advantages — The original Supermill was a hydraulic twin saw, it was easy and safe to operate with the operator standing still and watching the power head moving up the log and returning the finished board. There is no manual removing or lifting the cut boards or working in close proximity to blades.
  The Minimax also has riving blades on both blades for added safety.
• Twin Saw — The twinsaws are gathering popularity in the Northern Hemisphere because of low blade maintainence and hence low operating costs for timber cut especially in remote areas. It looks like the Minimax has the cutting edge!
  The new gearing has put a lot more torque to the blades.
  Download the video of the Minimax in action
• Cut to Taper —Using the Cut to Taper facility, you cut the good wood from the first side of the log then cut a wedged board from the pruning knots or core wood which is a lower grade in the middle. This brings you parallel to the outside of the log, where you can retrieve long lengths of good wood again. This feature is usually associated with much larger mills. The Cut to Taper facility decreases the time spent docking and stacking short boards and increases the quality and value of the sawn board. When you have bought the log, you must get the best out of it to put the money in your pocket. The Cut to Taper facility also makes it faster to load logs onto the sawmill as the final adjustments of lining up the log to the beam can be done at the turn of a handle.
• Set Up — With the new trailer, setting up the Minimax is made easy. Just drive the Minimax to your mill site, set up the cross members in position under the beam and using the chain blocks, lift the mill off the trailer and you are ready to start cutting.
• Safety — The safety features are all built into the Minimax. You are not working near the blades, there are 2 riving knives and you are not doing the hard work of pushing, pulling or lifting. The Minimax appealed to farmers, sawmillers and was applauded by couples that worked together. This machine is not like running a marathon, you can produce cut timber all day with the machine doing the work.
• Factory — New machines are assembled, test run and packaged in the same factory. It's an interesting place to visit to gain new knowledge and see new products.
• Customer Support — Sawmills New Zealand Ltd provides full support. The team headed by John and Ben Bergman are a family business where personal service is a must. We are available via phone, fax and email for support, and in the set up stages we have a team to assist and make sure all aspects of this mill are up running before you fly solo!
• Worldwide Distributors – New Zealand: Ben and John Bergman (09) 4059708 Australia: Queensland Agent: Mark Rankin (07) 5494 8862 NSW Agent: Steve Sneddon 02 499 645 04 Canada
  See our Mills operating in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Alaska, Siberia, Samoa, Africa, Fiji